


The Rest Hid Underneath, Him More Desirous Made

by onstraysod



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Desire, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Relationship, Voyeurism, coquettish Jopson, does he know what he's doing? you decide, there's no knife sharp enough, to cut through this UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 13:08:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20008798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/pseuds/onstraysod
Summary: It wasn’t as if he didn’t endure this gauntlet on a daily basis, didn’t dodge all the pitfalls and perils of reporting to the captain while the steward hovered in the background, all eyes and slender hips and pouting mouth. He had crossed this bridge of swords countless times and managed to avoid impaling himself upon the sharp tip of his hunger. It would be no different today.





	The Rest Hid Underneath, Him More Desirous Made

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sol_Invictus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sol_Invictus/gifts).



> For Sol_Invictus, with much gratitude for enabling my addiction ;)
> 
> Title taken from Spenser's _The Faerie Queene_

“I think this chronometer’s slow.”

Hodgson’s voice was barely audible through the muffler drawn up over his nose. Mate Thomas and seaman Hartnell, currently assisting him with his measurements, leaned over the instrument where it sat on the rail, murmuring incoherently as Hodgson pointed and tutted and pulled his pocket watch out from the warm recesses of his coat.

“Lieutenant Little, might we check this one against the captain’s?” Hodgson asked.

Some feet astern along the rail, Edward Little lowered the telescope with which he’d been watching the captain’s party as it journeyed across the ice to _Erebus_. Crozier, along with Mr. Blanky and Lieutenant Irving, had taken a large party of sailors over to their sister ship for a day’s recreation, the weather being unusually mild. A mere skeleton crew remained on Terror, most of whom were either presently on deck engaged in observations, or laid up in sick bay.

“I don’t see why not,” Edward answered, sliding the spyglass closed. “I’ll run down and fetch it.”

“Ah, most kind of you, sir!” Hodgson gestured to his two assistants with his wool-wrapped hands. “We’ll turn to meteorology in the meantime, gentlemen. What does the barometer have to tell us, Mr. Hartnell?”

Descending the ladder and pulling the hatch closed behind him, Edward was struck by the difference the men’s absence made in the atmosphere below decks. Aside from the relative silence - broken only by a few desultory coughs from the sick bay and the now-familiar groaning of the ice - there was a strange heaviness in the dark, deserted spaces of fo'c'sle and gunroom that felt ripe with expectancy: a pregnant pause before the crack of thunder. A kind of tension he couldn’t account for settled itself on Edward’s shoulders and the back of his neck as he walked down the passage to the great cabin.

In point of fact, Edward had merely become skilled at self-deception. He brushed awareness of his emotions off as easily as he did the snowflakes that clung to his heavy brows. Sometimes this was for the best: pessimistic ruminations about their besetment got in the way of the fulfillment of his duties. But it backfired in other cases, suppressed concerns - feelings - _desires_ \- having a way of demanding his attention by spilling out with a vengeance in his dreams. When he woke deep in the night, achingly hard, sweat-damp sheets gripped in clenched fingers, it was not so easy to bury uncomfortable truths beneath the spit and polish of Navy protocol.

 _He_ would be there in the great cabin, of course; it was where he spent most of his time. If the natural habitat of a lieutenant was the quarterdeck or wardroom, a captain’s steward had his domain in the captain’s hallowed quarters. He’d be dusting the table and bookcases, or polishing the glasses from which Crozier too frequently imbibed his beloved whiskey; or he might be changing the bedclothes in the narrow bed place, or folding the captain’s newly laundered linens. Whatever he was doing, Thomas Jopson would pause at Edward’s entrance, lifting the most incredible eyes in the whole of Creation to fix him with a curious, solicitous gaze; and Edward would force words from a tongue that sat like an anchor in his mouth, and try in vain to calm the mad-rabbit racing of his heart, lest it leap from beneath his breastbone and plant itself at its keeper’s feet.

He acknowledged all of this in his mind during the few steps it took him to reach the door of the great cabin, the thoughts passing through his consciousness with the speed of the locomotive once powered by the Croydon engine in the hold. Then he turned his focus to something, anything else: the tingle of warmth returning to the tips of his fingers, a loose thread on his cuff, a fresh scuff mark in the wood of the wardroom door. It wasn’t as if he didn’t endure this gauntlet on a daily basis, didn’t dodge all the pitfalls and perils of reporting to the captain while the steward hovered in the background, all eyes and slender hips and pouting mouth. Edward had crossed this bridge of swords countless times and managed to avoid impaling himself upon the sharp tip of his hunger. It would be no different today.

Giving the accustomed rap with his knuckles to indicate his presence, Edward slid open the cabin door and lifted his eyes from the toes of his boots, seeking out Jopson’s position inside. He would fix the steward in space and draw an invisible boundary around him, a line Edward could not dare cross.

But instead, he jerked to a clumsy stop and felt his mouth fall open on an absence of words.

The captain’s bathtub had been drawn up in front of the stove, filled with water so hot it still issued sheets of steam from its surface; and inside sat Thomas Jopson, naked as a babe. Mercifully - _mercifully?_ Edward wondered in some befuddled part of his brain - everything beneath the midpoint of the steward’s stomach was obscured by a skin of soap that lay on the water, but what was exposed to the air was far more than he’d seen or dared to dream of seeing in such cold climes. Jopson was in the act of washing his throat as Edward entered, head arched back as he passed a sudsy cloth down the curve of his trachea, his free arm stretched out along the rim of the tub. At the sound of the lieutenant’s heavy tread, his head snapped back up and he dropped the cloth with a soft plop into the water covering his lap. His sea green eyes wide with surprise and luminous with daylight from the patent illuminators, Jopson stared mutely at Edward, tendrils of bright blood creeping rapidly into his cheeks. 

“Sir! I-- Forgive me, I didn’t--" Jopson’s hands scrabbled for placement on the sides of the tub and, in his embarrassment, he started to rise.

“No! Jopson, please--" The words rushed out of Edward’s mouth as a single entity of sound, an incomprehensible string of syllables that nonetheless arrested Jopson’s movement. The steward paused, fingers still curled tightly around the tub’s edges, eyes round and rooted to Edward’s face.

“As you were.” 

Edward hadn’t known it was possible to perceive so many things at once. He watched the steward lift one hand to smooth back his hair as if it weren’t already slicked back against his skull, black as onyx in its wetness. At the same time, Edward tracked the progress of several separate drops of water trickling down Jopson’s neck: racing down the curve of his shoulder, pooling in the hollow between his collarbones, dribbling down his chest until lost amidst the cluster of dark hair that stretched from nipple to nipple. The steward’s forearms were similarly dusky with hair, while his upper arms and shoulders were creamy and unblemished: all tight, lean muscle and rounded points of bone, contrasts of coarse hair and smooth, supple flesh. Edward could almost feel those contrasts in his palms: _smooth, tickle, smooth; pliant, hard, pliant_. He dragged his gaze from a nipple, rosy brown against the pale skin surrounding it, and swallowed down a burst of excess saliva that had flooded his mouth.

The awkward, silent pause lasted mere seconds; then both men began talking at once.

“Forgive my intrusion--"

“The captain gave me permission--"

“I would never have--"

“I wouldn’t presume--"

Jopson gave a small, bashful laugh, breaking the impasse, and Edward relaxed just enough to breathe. It was hardly significant: his body felt as tense as rigging in a squall, every nerve, every muscle, drawn taut and thrumming like a plucked string. He focused his gaze on a knot in the floorboards and fought to hold it there. “Forgive me, I wouldn’t have barged in if I’d known…”

“It’s quite all right, sir; you caught me by surprise, is all. Is there something I can help you with?”

“No, no.” Edward twisted at the band of his cap, resolutely not glancing up even as he heard water slosh against the sides of the tub. _What was he doing? Was less of him showing above the waterline now, or more?_ “I can manage. I’ve just come, uh, to-- to get it, take it back on deck.”

There was a pause. “Get it, sir?”

“Yes.”

“What is _it_ , sir?”

Edward’s gaze lifted of its own accord, meeting Jopson’s, and he opened his mouth to speak. But what it was, exactly - what he had come to the cabin to fetch in the first place - had utterly escaped his mind. Fixed by that keen stare, Edward gulped like a beached fish and cast his glance desperately around the room, trying to remember, trying to picture the object of his errand, though all that rose before his inner eye was the long curve of Jopson’s throat, the tantalizing path of hair bifurcating his chest and leading down beneath the water. “It’s, uh--" Edward lifted a gloved hand, rubbed briskly at his eyes, “it’s…”

“Something for the observations, sir?”

“Yes. Of course. The chronometer. The one the captain keeps here--"

“It’s in the cabinet behind me,” Jopson told him, turning and giving Edward a glimpse of flexing back muscles and shifting shoulder blades as he stretched out an arm to point. “The second shelf, just up there.”

“Thank you, Jopson.” Clearing his throat, Edward walked forward, the edge of his coat brushing the side of the tub. Wet steam whispered against his cheek and he kept his eyes trained on the cabinet in front of him, not daring to risk a glance at Jopson now that he was closer to the man, now that he was in a position to look down at the water with its shifting film of soap. Opening one cabinet door, Edward peered inside.

“Do you see it, sir?”

It was instinctual to Edward, to turn to look at the person addressing him; with one hand still on the door handle, he glanced around and saw that Jopson had taken up the cloth again and was passing it over the back of his neck. Streams of water ran down his arm and off his elbow, dispersing the clusters of soap bubbles below and allowing Edward the sight of two pale thighs beneath the surface, and a shadowed shape in between…

Pulling in a sharp breath as he hastily averted his gaze, Edward shook his head, though Jopson had no way of seeing the gesture. “N-no, I don’t-- I think it’s gone.”

“Oh sir, I think now I may have moved it.” Edward heard a cascade of water behind him and, automatically turning again, beheld the entirety of Thomas Jopson’s naked form emerging from the bathtub. Long, sculpted back and slender hips and a tight but perfectly supple, rounded arse… Edward could not help but stare, any more than he could prevent the rivers of pulsing heat that rushed - throbbing and coiling and swelling - to that tender place beneath the pit of his stomach, settling like an insistent, inconvenient stone in his groin and his mind.

The steward leaned over and grabbed a towel from a nearby chair, wrapping it swiftly around his waist as he climbed out of the tub. Turning to face Edward, he held the towel in place with one hand and pushed a lock of lank hair back from his brow with the other. Edward, dumbstruck, stood rooted to the spot, not even moving when Jopson turned sideways to edge between him and the end of the tub.

“My apologies, sir,” Jopson murmured, and to Edward’s intense surprise, he reached out with his free hand to stroke along Edward’s arm. “I’m getting you all wet.”

The fog dispersed from his brain with laborious slowness; looking down at his sleeve, Edward noticed a few lingering water droplets from where Jopson’s arm had slid against him in passing. The steward had been attempting to brush off the water, though it clung still to his skin, a soft, translucent sheen. Edward touched the beads lying on the blue wool of his coat as reverently as if they were diamonds. “I don’t mind it.”

“It’s just here, sir.” Still holding the towel in place with one hand, Jopson knelt and slid open the door of a lower cabinet. “I remembered I’d shifted it to make room for…” Jopson paused, glancing up at Edward before averting his eyes again, “well, for other things.”

Edward needed no explaination: he’d seen the bottles of whiskey inside the cabinet, stacked several deep, and didn’t blame the steward for saving himself such frequent trips to the orlop. 

Retrieving the wooden chronometer case, Edward regained a small measure of his composure, the weight of the instrument in his hands recalling to mind matters of latitude and longitude: solid, quantifiable things he could understand and, to some extent, control. So unlike the feelings the captain’s steward roused in him, wild and elemental, and increasingly ungovernable.

“You should get back in,” he blurted out, nodding in the direction of the tub. “You’ll catch cold like this.”

In the space between the tub and the cabinets, Jopson was obliged to stand quite close, and Edward was too keenly aware of the man: the palpable warmth of his naked body, the faint notes of violet and lavender in the soap, the moisture clinging to clavicle and nipple, glittering like gems on shoulder and chin. Jopson smiled, eyelids dropping demurely for a moment before looking up again to meet Edward’s gaze.

“I feel quite warm at the moment. Sir.”

Close; he was so very close Edward could almost taste him: soap and stove-heated water and _Thomas_ , sweet and soft like marzipan dissolving with a sizzle on his tongue. Soft and pliant beneath his hands, warm and eager and yielding: the towel tossed away and Edward’s mouth moving and exploring and savoring, making Jopson writhe and pant and swear on the unnamed gods who ruled over carnal pleasures in such a godless place. Edward’s body vibrated with animal urges he could barely control; were he a crueler, more reckless man, he would have Jopson turned about and bent over the table so he could sink into his warmth, so he could rut like any beast gone mad with primal need. But Edward Little had earned his epaulets through discipline, and to discipline he cleaved, even when the steward’s gaze dropped from his eyes to his mouth, even as they both stood staring at one another’s lips like starving pilgrims espying a tree laden with ripe fruit.

“Thank you for your help, Mr. Jopson.”

He stammered over the words, but he said them, and Jopson’s gaze returned to his eyes, the professional mien of the captain’s steward falling into place again on his face and in his posture. Drawing himself up, he nodded crisply and took a half-step backwards, increasing the distance between himself and the lieutenant.

“Of course, sir.”

Edward’s glance was already charting his escape from the room. “I’ll let you-- uh-- get back to--" And without bothering to finish the sentiment, he was stumbling out the door, cradling the chronometer against his chest.

The sub-zero air on deck would cure it, yet as it turned out Edward’s vaunted discipline was finite, and the journey up the ladder more than his strength could currently bear. Ducking into his cabin, he closed the door at his back and set the timepiece carelessly upon his bunk. He used his teeth to tear off his gloves, his fingers trembling as he unbuttoned his trousers and took his hard length in hand. His palm wasn’t smooth enough, his fingers not quite as long and nimble, but his clumsy ministrations would have to do. 

Closing his eyes, he turned his face against the shoulder of his coat where several drops of water from Jopson’s arm still stood, pearled upon the wool. He felt them, cool against his lips, and he licked them in as his pace quickened and he tightened his grip. With the steward’s fair form filling his mind, the man’s name on the exhalation of each heavy breath, Edward made his own kind of observation: he measured the depth of improbability and wondered if a few drops of bathwater were the closest he’d ever come to tasting Thomas Jopson’s skin.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the [second bath-related fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15981440/chapters/42267056) I've written without having any idea if captains actually had bathtubs of any kind on board their ships. We'll call it artistic license, just in case.


End file.
